During the past 24 hours we have witnessed a large influx of new users. Current stats show that Voat has been visited by 168,213 people in the last 24 hours alone, making 9,571,200 requests and burning through 117 GB of bandwidth. We are currently running at 300% our normal volume. You can see the spike very clearly here.
Because of this, we were forced to scale up our hardware to accommodate the new users, but this will incur significant costs which we won’t be able to cover without your help. Voat gets money primarily from your donations and ad-sales, but ad-sales have so far been unable to cover the expenses. In the past 24 hours, we have received $1,085 in donations and ad-orders through our store http://store.voat.co, and $180 through bitcoin. This is amazing and we sincerely thank you for every dollar you contribute to keep Voat online, but our past experience shows that donations and ads combined can no longer cover Voat hosting fees.
Voat also has a major flaw: we have no fulltime staff. Voat is currently managed by two people who have full time jobs “on the side”, which makes things very complicated. Voat needs fulltime staff to monitor the servers, respond to support and abuse emails, process donations and keep the wheels turning. With donations alone, this has not been possible so far, resulting in poor site performance and user experience.
We have all witnessed in one way or another how a website which takes on investors can slowly degrade and become outright unusable. Given our commitment to Freedom of Speech, we have to be very careful about who we partner with. Because of this, we have rejected several offers from investors who we believe would not be compatible with Voat’s core philosophy. For the record, we have had investment offers from all over the world during the past 2 years, many of which we were either too busy to entertain or too concerned with underlying motives of the parties involved.
So, what do we do?
We want to keep Voat alive. We want to be able to work full time on what we love and do best. We don’t want to change what Voat stands for or Voat’s core principles, and thus we need your help. If you have contacts or relationships with potential investors who also believe in and support our Freedom of Speech commitment, please let us know and please let them know that we need their help.
Until we have a permanent solution, we need you to donate, buy ads and merchandise (to be announced soon). Every bit helps.
Edit 1: typos
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qpwt ago
Don't take on an investor. Remain independent. It's the only way you can avoid pressure to influence content and users on the site. It's the only way you can remain in control (if the conspiracy theorists are incorrect and voat it not compromised). And even when you have employees, you must be vigilant and purge those that do not hold the values of Voat dear to their hearts.
I have begun supporting individuals who provide services that facilitate freedom of speech. Whether it's a website or a web series, it is now worth it to pay for these things via direct donations or subscription services until they demonstrate a lack of freedom of speech. One of them uses Patreon to facilitate donations, but there are other ways.
If there is a way to support Voat via recurring donation then let me know, I will do it. Today is the first time I've decided to donate. I've been here long enough to see that this place is a rowdy bunch of shit-stained faggots devoted to saying whatever the fuck we want. I like it that way. The internet has provided a great place, not a safe space, for us to anonymously voice opinions and receive feedback on those opinions. To test the waters. Let all voices be heard! And if a voice is spewing stupid fucking bullshit, let the backlash whip them on the ass on their way out, as their ideas vacate the forum to be re-evaluated in the private depths of the individual perpetrator's mind. And so, together, we turn coal (carbon) into diamonds with the pressure of argument, facts, reason, and logic.
I'm donating $10 now. Remain independent.
xeemee ago
NSA 'Bob': did you get that?
NSA 'Bill': yeah, got it
qpwt ago
lol yeah I know I know. Anonymous to the layman, at least. That's good enough for me (at most times).